An important point about being visible on radar. Even if a ship has "the best radar" and your kayak is made entirely of radar reflecting material the main safety factor is whether or not the ship's crew is paying attention to the radar. Obviously the crew of the Exxon Valdez was not! Bligh reef was marked and visilble on radar. Last summer here in southeast alaska the ferry LeConte (200') almost collided in the fog with a small cruise ship. Both ships had radar! They missed by 50'! Also I have often seen fishermen in southeast working the back of the boat where the fishing gear is and they only occasionally look forward to see if they are still on course. The radar could be showing a dozen kayaks and they would not notice. Also some of the bigger ships in narrow passages have little or no room to manuvover and it takes miles for them to stop! So I always assume they are unaware of my presence and it is up to me to stay out of their way. Happy boating Bob sitka *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Regarding radar (again), It isn't the really huge ships one should worry about, in that (as all agree) there is zero possibility of making them see you, and frankly they won't stop or maneuver around you anyway. Stay out of their way. It isn't hard to stay out of the main shipping lanes in most areas. It is the medium and small guys that behave erratically. Those people may have their radar turned off, even in fog, or have no experience or training. For the 30' fishing boats and cabin cruisers and sailboats, you just might be visible on radar, under best of circumstances, but this will never be reliable. Whether you are canoeing, kayaking, or even in a small to medium motorboat, the best advice is to assume they don't see you, don't have radar, and may have been drinking. There was a major collision in the English Channel in August -- two experienced captains, large commercial boats, radar, GPS, and damn if they didn't hit each other anyhow. A freighter out of San Francisco hit a large fishing boat called the Jack Junior a few years back, caught its nets, dragged it underwater, and no trace was found for months. You just have to minimize time spent in the shipping lanes, know you are invisible, and work from there. jerry. At 12:25 PM 10/22/1999 -0800, Rev. Bob Carter wrote: > An important point about being visible on radar. > > > Even if a ship has "the best radar" and your kayak is made entirely of >radar reflecting material the main safety factor is whether or not the ship's >crew is paying attention to the radar. Obviously the crew of the Exxon Valdez >was not! Bligh reef was marked and visilble on radar. > > > Last summer here in southeast alaska the ferry LeConte (200') almost >collided in the fog with a small cruise ship. Both ships had radar! They >missed by 50'! > > > Also I have often seen fishermen in southeast working the back of the boat >where the fishing gear is and they only occasionally look forward to see if >they are still on course. The radar could be showing a dozen kayaks and they >would not notice. > > > Also some of the bigger ships in narrow passages have little or no room to >manuvover and it takes miles for them to stop! > > > So I always assume they are unaware of my presence and it is up to me to >stay out of their way. > > >Happy boating > > >Bob > > >sitka > > > > > > > > >*************************************************************************** >PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not >to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission >Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net >Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net >Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ >*************************************************************************** > *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
At 14:44 10/22/99 -0700, Jerry Hawkins wrote: > >Regarding radar (again), [snip] > Whether you are canoeing, kayaking, or even in a small to medium motorboat, the best advice >is to assume they don't see you, don't have radar, and may have been drinking. There was a >major collision in the English Channel in August -- two experienced captains, large >commercial boats, radar, GPS, and damn if they didn't hit each other anyhow. A freighter out >of San Francisco hit a large fishing! boat called the Jack Junior a few years back, caught >its nets, dragged it underwater, and no trace was found for months. You just have to >minimize time spent in the shipping lanes, know you are invisible, and work from there. > >jerry. the aircraft carrier i was on hit a cargo ship a few months before i transferred onboard. ripped off the front of our ship, and damaged the other ship [killed a couple sailors too]. this also happened during the day. my second day on board i saw first hand how scarey it was, as we climbed down into a storeroom, which then had a hatch to another storeroom [in several places they would be 5 decks deep] so i opened the next hatch, and there was nothing there!! just the cement of the drydock 100+ feet below... it took a lot of force to rip that whole piece of the ship off... a math jockey i know once calculated the ship had the power to pull my entire hometown waterskiing behind it [40,000+ folks] --- you are no match for that... mark -- #------canoeist[at]netbox[dot]com-------------------------------------- mark zen o, o__ o_/| o_. po box 474 </ [\/ [\_| [\_\ ft. lupton, co 80621-0474 (`-/-------/----') (`----|-------\-') #~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~ http://www.jacknjillz.com/paddler [index of Paddling websites I manage] Rocky Mtn Sea Kayak Club, Colorado River Flows, Poudre Paddlers The Colorado Paddlers' Resource, Rocky Mtn Canoe Club Trip Page -- Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. --Pablo Picasso *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
>From: Jerry Hawkins <jhawkins_at_cisco.com> There was a major collision in the English Channel in August -- two experienced captains, large commercial boats, radar, GPS, and damn if they didn't hit each other anyhow. A freighter out of San Francisco hit a large fishing! > boat called the Jack Junior a few years back, caught its nets, dragged it >underwater, and no trace was found for months Regrettably, not an unusual occurence. Ironically, two ships who might have otherwise passed each other safely in fog, unaware of each other's presence, will sometimes see each other on their radar scopes. Then, even though there are clear rules in the collision regulations (and they could and should hail one another on the radio to clarify intentions), they will procede to do the marine equivilant of that dumb dance you do when you meet someone coming down the hall: both step to one side - the same side - then both "correct" to the other same side and so on. When this happens with large ships, you rapidly run out of options. This type of accident occurs often enough that safety investigators have a term for it: "radar assisted collision". Philip Torrens N49°16' W123°06' *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
This type of accident occurs often enough that > safety investigators have a term for it: "radar assisted collision". > > Philip Torrens > N49°16' W123°06' > > hi Philip, "radar assisted collision" got me to a couple of interesting websites: http://goals.com/nws/colavoid.htm I was below, in my bunk, asleep at the time of the collision. The Rules of the Road :http://www.oz.net/~papillon/wyc/wyc.html from the Washington Yacht Club web site, http://www.oz.net/~papillon/kbmanual/colregs.html bye bye bliven *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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